This is a fantastic post by Sal Freudenberg, describing various experiences of sexism that women may have at tech events, and how they can react / what they can do about it.
Category: Life
Advice for women (or anyone!) starting a career in tech
(a series of tweets originally sent to @ArrieLay and stored here for posterity…)
Fake it til you make it. Always act like you know what you’re doing, cos You DO – You’re being imperfect, just like everyone else.
Pay attention to people. Focus on empathy. Learn to pair. Learn to collaborate. Celebrate and enable your fellow team members.
Always come to work as yourself. Don’t be afraid to show vulnerabilities, and give others space to show theirs too.
Take risks. Relish your uncomfort zone.
Remember that EVERYBODY feels insecure about their knowledge levels. It’s impossible to know everything, and everybody thinks they are disadvantaged because others know more than them.
Learn to embrace your knowledge gaps. See them as exciting opportunities to learn more. Never be ashamed of them.
Have a questioning attitude, be open about your excitement about learning more. People respond well to it and will help you learn.
Question everything.
Love people. Even the annoying ones. People are great. People are useful. People will help you, whether they mean to or not. 🙂
And for the older amongst us… Age is an advantage, not a curse. Find the wisdom you forgot you had. Age is money in the bank.
Here are some links to some helpful resources for women (or anyone) arriving at or returning to careers in tech: https://insimpleterms.blog/2017/10/13/resources-for-women-arriving-at-or-returning-to-it/
How to spot a heart attack
I keep these notes sellotaped to a packet of aspirin.
I did a three-day St John’s Ambulance First Aider training course, and there I learnt that there is only one type of medicine I was allowed to give someone in need: If I suspected someone was having a heart attack, I could give them 300mg aspirin (checking first for allergies), to chew slowly or dissolve under their tongue.
Here is the crucial info to know about heart attacks. Worth printing out and keeping somewhere handy. It’s also worth keeping aspirin handy.
- Signs of heart attack:
- Not always chest – can be radiating jaw pain
- …or high abdomen, or arms / shoulders
- Sense of impending doom
- Gasping for air
- Going grey
- What to do:
- Don’t move them
- Put in Lazy W position (see below)
- Put support under knees
- Give something to lean against
- This might have to be you! Sit on your knees and let them lean against you.
- Give 300mg of aspirin
- Chew slowly
- Or dissolve under tongue
- Check for allergies first
- Get defibrillator ready (if poss)
The “Lazy W” Position
Home Made Press Studs!
Ha. This is quite funny really. I started this blog thinking I would use it to store all the gazillions of notes I make about code-related matters. But I make notes about EVERYTHING.
I can’t resist posting this one here. Just in case some random person finds it useful (see image above).
I bought a kit from Amazon, but the instructions were pretty woeful and at first I was rather mystified. But eventually I pieced it together made that image (^^), printed it out and put it in the box with this press stud kit:
